Cruising with SeaKeepers

Day Six: Bluefun Tuna

Let’s begin: Today is day six of the “Fish are Friends” pledge. The fish that will tempt me the most over the next few months is the delectable bluefin tuna.

FACTS

That $14 piece of toro on your plate may actually be one of three species: Atlantic bluefin, Pacific bluefin or southern bluefin.

All populations of bluefin tuna are overfished, which means they are caught at a rate faster than they can reproduce.

Most studies agree that over 80% of the bluefin population has disappeared over the past 40 years.

Despite calls to reduce catch limits, scientific recommendations are repeatedly ignored. Fisheries management institutions tend to focus debate on “how much overfishing to allow rather than how to effectively end it.”

In May of 2011, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization (NOAA) declined to protect Atlantic bluefin tuna under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), despite widespread scientific consensus that their survival as a species is threatened.

Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) is listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) is listed as critically endangered.

The tuna fishery often catches sharks, rays and other fish as bycatch.

Due to absurd demand for bluefin in high end sushi markets, the occurrence of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing has skyrocketed.

In November, fishermen off Nova Scotia killed a thousand pound bluefin, which will sell for over $30,000 US and produce nearly 20,000 pieces of sushi. Sylvia Earle compares the consumption of bluefin tuna to dining on snow leopards or pandas.

One of only two confirmed total spawning locations, the Gulf of Mexico, was recently polluted by 210 million gallons of oil after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Hopefully, you’ll keep this in mind the next time you’re tempted by that amazing sashimi lunch special…